Stirling Castle

The earliest recorded castle at Stirling was used by Malcolm
Canmore in the 11th century. Alexander I died here in 1124, as did William the
Lyon in 1214. Edward I of England captured the castle in 1304 when he used a
siege engine called the "War Wolf", even though the garrison had
already surrendered. William Wallace took the castle for the Scots, but it was
retaken by the English until the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Robert the Bruce
had the castle slighted, but it was rebuilt by Edward III of England, after his
victory of Halidon Hill in 1333, in support of Edward Balliol. The English
garrison was besieged in 1337 by Andrew Moray, but it was not until 1342 that
the Scots recovered the castle. James III was born here in 1451. James II lured
the 8th Earl of Douglas to it in 1452, murdered him, and had his body tossed out
of one of the windows, despite promising safe conduct.

The present castle which dates only from the 15th century, stands on a sheer 250-ft crag. The
castle's Parliament Hall was built for James III, and his son James IV added the
fine gatehouse. James V built most of the royal palace in the early 16th
century, and turned the castle into one of the most sumptuous in Scotland. James
VI, Mary's son, remodelled the Chapel Royal (below) for the christening of Prince
Henry in 1594.

Mary spent the first few years of her life, from 27 July 1543 within the
safe confines of this castle and in the hands of her guardian Lord Erskine, to
February 1548, when she was moved to Dumbarton Castle and eventually shipped to France. It is here,
in the Old Chapel, that Mary was crowned Queen of Scots on 9th September 1543 aged only 9 months.
The ceremony was by no means lavish, and consisted of the quick investiture of
the child in the presence of the nobility. The Earl of Arran bore the crown, the
Earl of Lennox the sceptre, and the Earl of Argyll the sword of state. The
pro-English party, including Angus, Gray, Glencairn, Cassillis and Maxwell,
stayed away altogether. Sir Ralph Sadler reported scathingly back that Mary had
been crowned "with such solemnitie as they do use in this country, which is
not very costlie". Even the date chosen was full of ill omens, falling on the thirtieth anniversary
of the Battle of Flodden.

Stirling Castle being a crown palace, Mary spent quite some time
there. A month in summer 1562 and most of September, October and November the
following year, April and May of 1565, and some days in September and December
of 1566 when her son was lodged there in the care of John Erskine, Earl of Mar
and son of Mary's own former guardian. On 17th December 1566, she attended
little James' christening, who was brought to the Chapel Royal in the arms of
the Count of Brienne, proxy for the King of France, in a
torchlight procession. The godparents were Elizabeth I of England, who
notoriously absent, sent a gold font and was represented by Jean, Countess of
Argyll and also the child's aunt, Charles IX of France, Mary's
brother-in-law, and her uncle, the Duke of Savoy represented by M. du Croc.
James was christened according to catholic rites but Mary refused to let the
priest spit in the child's mouth as was the custom. The ceremony was attended by
many of the Scottish nobles, but the Protestant Lords together with Bedford,
Elizabeth's emissary, stayed outside the chapel. Mary spared no expense for this
ceremony, clothing the nobility and ordering masques and fire-works. Darnley,
the child's father, who had put the final nail in the coffin of his disastrous
marriage to Mary by aiding and abetting the murder of Riccio, and had also
fallen from grace with Elizabeth and the French court, kept a low profile
sulking in a corner of the castle. Indeed, it would not be long before he met
his own untimely death at Kirk o'Field.

One of the main features of Stirling Castle is the
recently fully renovated Great Hall with its stunning hammerbeam ceiling,
modelled on the ceiling of the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle, and does not
contain a single nail. Its limestone exterior might seem surprising at first as
it contrasts with the dark colouring of the rest of the castle, but it is in
fact how the building would have looked in earlier times. The King and the
Queen's bedchambers located in the Royal Palace (below) are also in the process
of being restored to their original splendour.

The King's Knot, the great formal garden behind the
south fašade of the Palace, is thought to date to the time of Mary's grandson,
Charles I, but her father, James V, employed a French gardener at Stirling in
the 1530s and thus the establishment of a garden here may date to these years.
Mary's first visit to Stirling Castle since her return to Scotland, was on 13
September 1561. The next day, she was subjected to an incident during which her
priests and clerks were beaten up by Lords Argyll and James while the High Mass
was being sung in the Chapel Royal. This came as a shock to Mary as, not long
before that, Lord James had stopped the mob from disturbing Mary's private mass
at Holyrood. Later that evening, Mary came very close to asphyxiation when she
left a candle burning by her bedside, which set fire to the curtains of her
four-poster bed.